So, plot twist: As of today, I will no longer be regularly updating Myths Retold. I’ll still post periodically, but the posts will probably look more like this than like this. I’ve re-geared my Patreon to support my other creative writing projects (including Face a Week, which I’m very excited about) so check that out if you want stories, novel chapters, and swears on tap. I put all this info at the top of the post so that if it really pisses you off, you can skip straight to fucking off without having to read the rest. If you want to know why I’m ending this project, though, let me do the thing I know how to do: let me tell you a story… Continue reading →

I don’t think I need to convince you that comic book heroes are our modern gods. Superman has a definite Jesus thing going on. Characters like Storm and The Black Panther form the centers of in-canon religions. Thor is literally a norse god. If I had a nickel for every time a comic book writer tried to ram the “these men and women are our modern gods but oh how fallible they are” trope down our throats, I would have enough money to purchase one, maybe two additional comic books. But there is one sticking point in the comparison between these modern gods and those ancient ones: if comic book heroes really are gods, why aren’t we worshipping them? Well, we are, and in much the same ways that the Greeks did. Check it out:

Every year, the Ancient Greeks got super hyped for a festival called the Dyonisia. How it worked was a select few playwrights would be chosen to write plays for everyone to watch. These plays couldn’t be about just anything – they had to be based on established mythological stories about existing mythological characters. Stuff like the Oerestes, or Oedipus Rex, or Philoctetes – good wholesome stories about royalty fucking each other to death. The Dyonisia was a religious festival after all, even if the god it was dedicated to was probably too fucked up to care.

These plays were a big deal. Getting selected to write, act, or direct for the Dyonisia was the height of most artists’ careers. Mega-rich patrons contributed ludicrous sums to pay for the costumes, props and effects that wowed the drunk-as-shit audiences every year.

Do I need to spell the parallel out for you? Okay, fine. Comic book movies are the modern Dyonisia. Mega-rich studios draft legendary artists like Joss Whedon and Robert Downey Jr. to produce wildly entertaining theatrical clusterfucks based on established superheroes and existing superhero stories.

It’s no accident that some heroes are getting more movie love than others. For Marvel, it’s Captain America and Iron Man. For DC, it’s Batman and Superman. This was true long before comic book movies were even a thing. For reasons that are probably too complicated to understand, something about these heroes has resonated with audiences almost since their creation, causing them to be passed lovingly from artist to artist as their stories are told and retold. Movies, though, seriously amplify this focus, bringing the characters and their canons to viewers who would never have followed them in their original format. Basically, the characters who get the most movies made about them are the ones that will survive in the popular imagination.

I’d argue that we see the exact same process going on in ancient religions. What we view as the definitive versions of Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology (just to name three that have been widely translated into English) are really the result of an ages-long culture war between minor local gods. Greece, especially, was a loose collection of city-states, all with their own favorite gods and customs, who all kind of fucking hated each other, and what ended up becoming “Greek Mythology” was decided through a combination of war, politics, and pop culture. Diana, for example, is said to have been the central divinity in an early Greek goddess cult, but her inclusion in “Greek mythology” lead to her being sidelined and subordinated in a male-dominated pantheon.

An even clearer example of how this works: Grimm’s fairytales are not the only fairytales German parents used to scare the shit out of their children. As recent discoveries have shown, there are literally thousands of fairytales in the same tradition. Most of those were garbage, though, and Grimm’s curated collection has thus become the most widely circulated source for an entire area of folklore. And come to think of it, which Grimm’s tales do we actually remember? Oh, just the ones that were made into movies by Disney. Disney, which now owns Marvel Studios. I better hurry up and finish this post, because it’s kind of dangerous to type when you are so on fire.

So you’re probably thinking “Okay, your amazing words have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that comic book movies are the new mythology, and also you are handsome and I want to smooch you. But so what? What makes this different from any other hot take on a comic book movie?” Well first of all, thank you for telling me I’m handsome. That’s just the kind of self-esteem boost I needed. But secondly, this isn’t an article about comic book movies. I’m not saying they’re good or bad, or that you should see them or not (personally I think they are all uniformly garbage, but I’m also a huge asshole). I’m saying that the characters in these movies are more than characters now. To many of us, these heroes are living people with the capacity to arouse deep feelings in us. And that’s not far from worship. Not far at all.

This is why people get so mad when writers try to drastically change the characters, or when something is perceived as “non-canon.” This is what motivated a bunch of angry straight dudes to try to shout down #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend. Weirdly, I think it’s also what led to people getting so angry when Captain America was revealed to be a deep cover Hydra operative a few days later. These characters no longer truly belong to the writers who are writing their stories. They exist independent of their individual fictions. In our minds, many of their traits are already set in stone.

It’s more than that, though. We care about the continuity of these characters because in some ways we identify with them, aspire to be them. Insecure straight guys don’t want to identify with a bisexual Captain America, and people who don’t like racism don’t want to identify with a Captain America who is a nazi. No matter how much we talk about wanting the characters to reflect the times, or to explore new story arcs, there is a part of us that wants the thing we are worshipping to be predictable, to stay the same.

This is why we have religions, after all – to make an unpredictable world feel more predictable. And it’s why polytheism has been especially tenacious: sometimes you need different gods like you need different music. Even Jesus only acts like Superman some of the time. Put some moneylenders in a church, and suddenly dude is all Hulked out. Comic book movies give us all the comforts of polytheism without demanding we convert. Iron Man is the patron saint of startup culture. Deadpool is the patron saint of twelve-year-old boys. Superman is the patron saint of being an asshole. There’s an aspirational character for everyone, unless you’re gay or asian or a woman who doesn’t like Black Widow. And this isn’t anything new – this is exactly what Disney did with all its princesses a few decades ago. The movie pantheon will never die, and we don’t even need to sacrifice one goat. Twelve dollars a head is all the offering these gods demand.

So what I’m saying is, first of all, pay attention to the superheroes you love, and what you love about them. It probably says more about your aspirations than you’d like to admit. Our favorite superheroes as a culture also reflect our culture’s values, and changing those superheroes really does have the power to alter our culture, silly as it may seem. Third, don’t you fucking dare pretend to be a rational being. Ba’al, Belle, or Batman, we all worship gods of one kind or another.

Okay so this is the time of the month
where I tell a myth from a mythos recommended by my patreon backers
and this month I’m supposed to tell a story about like
Solomon or David or Saul
from the book of Samuel or the book of kings
or really anything judeochristian
but I started thinking
why are we always talking about “judeochristian” shit
and leaving out muslim shit?
like, isn’t muslim shit part of the same tradition?
isn’t the Qur’an the third book in the Monotheism Trilogy?
seriously, why aren’t we talking about “judeochristimuslim” mythology?
is it because that’s a super awkward portmanteu
or is this some more white people shit?
it’s definitely NOT because the Qur’an is boring
do you realize
there are fucking GENIES in the Qur’an???
SPOILER ALERT:
THERE ARE FUCKING GENIES IN THE QUR’AN
AND talking animals
AND all your favorite characters from the first two books
like David and Solomon
ESPECIALLY Solomon.

Now I know there are a lot of Solomon fans out there
so I’m bracing myself for a torrent of hatemail when I say:
Old Testament Solomon is kind of a boring chump.Like, he threatens to chop ONE baby in half
and granted that’s pretty cool
but Old Testament god is routinely murdering HUNDREDS of babies at a go
he turns an entire city of people to slag for being gays
the bar for weird violence is pretty high is what I’m saying.
Other than that baby thing, Solomon is pretty skippable
he builds a temple
he has an army
the queen of sheba seems to think he’s pretty cool
but we don’t even get to see them bone
SNORE

MEANWHILE, over in the Qur’an
Solomon is a fucking bosshe can control the wind
he can talk to animals
he’s got genies on the fucking payroll
because oh yeah did I mention
THERE ARE FUCKING GENIES IN THE QUR’AN YOU GUYS
and all of this is because
(as the Old Testament will confirm)
when Solomon became king
God came up to him and was like “yo
I was friends with your dad
So I will give you any superpower you want
what superpower you want”
and Solomon is like “How about SUPER-WISDOM
so that I can always be a JUST AND RIGHTEOUS KING”
and God is like “WHAT A DOPE ANSWER
SO SELFLESS
SUCH KIND
HERE, HAVE ALL THESE OTHER SUPERPOWERS AS A BONUS”

And Solomon is truly very wise
even before he gets god-wisdomlike one time, Solomon and his dad are hanging out
and these two dudes come up to them
and one of them is like “That dude’s goats ate my vineyard
make him fix it”
and the other dude is like “nuh uh”
and Solomon’s first instinct is to chop the goats in half
but he thinks about it for a second
and then he’s like “okay check it out
vineyard dude, you own the goats now
and goat dude, you own the vineyard now
this will continue until the vineyard is fixed
now would someone please hurry up and invent the microphone
because I need to drop it.”
and everyone is like OH SHIT SUCH JUSTICE

And he is a genuinely nice dude too
like you know how he can understand animals?well one time he’s about to step on some ants
and the ants are like “OH FUCK IT’S KING SOLOMON’S FOOT
FUCKING BOOK IT”
and Solomon hears them and he’s like “Oh damn
better watch were I step”
and then he walks carefully for the REST OF HIS LIFE
JUST SO HE WON’T FUCK UP ANY ANTS

Oh yeah and then later he dies
but he dies standing up, in front of all his genies and shit
and he is so full of fucking gravitas
he just stays standing
and everybody thinks he is just taking a really long dramatic pause
until god sends a termite to eat his staff
and he falls down
and everyone learns a valuable lesson about stroke awareness.

So the moral of the story
is why don’t they sell embossed boxed sets
of the Torah/New Testament/Qur’an
I would buy the hell out of that

So I stumbled across this collection of Aboriginal tales last week
and while the introduction wins the H.P. Lovecraft Prize for Casual Racism
(Which is something I want to talk about in a later post)
I like these stories
so I am going to tell at least one moreit is about how friendship is bullshit.

Okay so way back in the day
before factory farming and sportfishing
all the animals are people
I mean like actual human people but just with animal names
i think this is taking the “animals can talk and do math” conceit TOO FAR
but whatever I’m not writing this story I’m just retelling it
if the original tellers of this story want to turn all of nature
into one mass of quivering human flesh
constantly resorting to cannibalism
for lack of any other protein source
i mean hey why not make all the plants human too
naked humans loping around on all fours
nibbling succulent bouquets of fingers sprouting from the earth
BUT ENOUGH BODY HORROR

These animals have heard of a place called Australia
no idea where they reside currently
but wherever it is, it sucks and Australia sounds better
so they all decide to go there
but they need a boat
and only one of them owns a boat that is big enough:
Whale.
Whale is a real dickhole though
he’s that kid from kindergarten
whose parents bought him one of those little electric jeeps
and he wouldn’t let you ride in it when you came over
even though he had access to it literally ALL THE TIME
and you didn’t because your parents were socialists
but he didn’t care and he would just ride it around in front of you
laughing like the pompous little shit he was
but then you went on to start a popular mythology website
so NOW WHO’S LAUGHING TOBY?????
I HOPE YOU DIED IN AN ELECTRICAL FIRE YOU PROTOTYPICAL FUCKBOY

anyway the whale won’t let anyone share his canoe
so all the other “animals” get together to figure out what to do
they’re like “shit, how are we gonna get Whale’s boat?
I mean let’s be realistic
we’re not going to build our own boat
not like we all have human bodies
with thumbs and highly developed brains
which would easily allow us to construct an even better boat
no
stealing is the only option
BUT HOW???”
and that’s when Starfish speaks up

Now Starfish is Whale’s best friend
which i think speaks to how few friends Whale has
because Starfish is like “yo guys
I am 100% willing to betray my best friend so you can steal his boat
Here is my plan:
I will distract him
and you will steal his boat.”
and the other “animals” are like “How are you gonna distract him”
and the starfish is like “You leave that to me”
*WINK*

So Starfish goes to Whale and he’s like “Yo man
your hair is full of vermin
let’ me get out the vermin for you
I don’t mind touching gross shit.
I’m friends with you, after all.”
and Whale
who has to take whatever friendship he can get
is like “Sure fine clean my hair.”
So starfish sits him down facing away from his boat
and he starts digging lice out of Whale’s hair
and telling him funny stories
and scratching around his ears
to keep him from hearing his boat being stolen
and every once in a while Whale will be like “wait, my boat
is my boat ok? do you see it?”
and Starfish just bangs a piece of wood he found against a rock
and is like “YUP THAT’S THE SOUND OF YOUR BOAT
SEEMS FINE.”
and Whale is like “yes of course
I trust you because you are my friend and you have no reason to lie”
but finally he gets a little suspicious
and he turns around
and sees EVERY OTHER ANIMAL stealing his boat
and he’s like “STARFISH YOU PIECE OF SHIT
I AM GOING TO RUIN YOUR WHOLE BODY”
and that’s what he does
he beats the everloving crap out of his treacherous friend
who only manages to poke a hole in the top of his head
before slithering away to hide in the sand
and that’s why
TO THIS DAY
starfish always look raggedy as hell
and also why they hide in the sand

so then whale
with a big hole in his head
jumps into the water and starts chasing the boat
blowing water out his head-hole
and the animals on the boat are freaking out
but Bear is like “Nah guys it’s cool
I’m comping all y’all’s tickets
TO THE GUN SHOW”
and then he uses his massive arms
to row the boat way faster than Human!Whale can swim
and they get to australia
and then they throw a dance party in the boat
totally wrecking it
and turning it into an island
and then Whale finally shows up
to see that they fucked up his boat for no reason
and he can’t even go on land
i guess because he’s too angry
and that’s why
to this day
whales are a metaphor for singleminded ambition cruelly punished
and bears will fuck you up.

So the moral of the story
is that if you value your possessions
you shouldn’t have friends

Yeah I know
what the fuck right
coming out of the veritable rape circus of greek mythology
it’s hard to imagine any myths having like
a positive attitude about women saying no to sex
but here we arein this Aboriginal story
about to learn what the fuck “no” means.

So there are these seven ice queens who live in space
ice queen here is not metaphorical
these ladies are literally made out of ice
which makes it weird how incredibly hot they all are
they are so hot that they are STARS
specifically the pleiades
and everybody wants to get with a star
so obviously these ladies are in demand
and since some people are assholes
bad shit is bound to happen

basically some cock-sergeant named Wurrunnah
through “a cunning device”
probably made of a bear trap and a fishing rod or something
manages to trap not one but two of the star ladies.
I don’t know why he needed two
I mean I guess I do know why
but still
seems greedy
anyway he gets them down to earth and then he realizes
MUCH TO HIS UNJUSTIFIED SURPRISE
that these ladies are made out of actual ice
and are thus totally unfuckable

so Wurrunnah does what any psychopath would do in this scenario
he builds a fire and tries to melt the ice off so he can have sex with them
but yo they are MADE OF ICE
so as they start to melt
their ice turns into water and puts out the fire
which means all Wurrunnah has managed to do
is make these ladies a little skinnier and lumpier
but he’s not giving up
because you gotta go full asshole, you know
so he sends them out to the forest to get pine bark for another fire
and the pine tree they go to is like YO
CLIMB ON MY TRUNK
I WILL TAKE YOU TO SPAAAACE
which is a thing I wish more trees would say to me
but anyway it works and they escape
still all fucked up from the fire
which is why two of the stars in the pleiades are dimmer than the others

ANYWAY
there are two other dudes in love with the ladies
and these dudes are miraculously NOT assholes.
They are called the Berai Berai
or “Two Brothers”
WOW
anyway these dudes are super respectful
they’re always leaving offerings to the star ladies when they go hunting
and i don’t know
writing them poetry or some shit
anyway the ladies aren’t interested
probably because they don’t eat meat and no one likes poetry
so the Berai Berai never get to consummate their love
they just keep making offerings until they die

BUT THAT’S NOT THE END
when the two brothers die the spirits take pity on them
so what do you think they do?
do they force two of the women to marry the two men?
maybe the two women who already got damaged by the fire
because like whatever???
NO
they put the two brothers up in the sky
at a respectful distance
where they can enjoy the star ladies’ beautiful singing FOREVER
in fact
those dudes are what we refer to in the west
as Orion’s belt and Orion’s bow.
You might think it would be torture
to listen to the objects of your affection sing forever
but they seem to actually really enjoy it
plus they get to be stars

all of this goes to showas I have said before
that it is totally cool to love someone from afar
for as long as you want
just as long as you are totally cool being miserable about it forever.

a girl named mary owns a lamb
let’s skip over why she’s allowed to have an animal
and straight to the fact that this lamb is obsessed with her
it follows her fucking everywhere
it’s weird

but yeah when mary goes to school one day
and the lamb follows her
nobody is surprised
which doesn’t mean nobody reacts
all the kids go apeshit over this lamb shit
kids will go apeshit over literally anything
i mean you have to imagine there are plenty lambs around
if a little girl is allowed to own one as a pet
but everyone is like HOLY SHIT
LAMB AT SCHOOL
SHUT IT DOWN
WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUCK
they’re all running around howling
hands pressed to the sides of their faces
trying to wrap their tiny child minds
around this insane new development

obviously the teacher isn’t thrilled
so she throws the lamb out of the building
like the responsible adult she is
but the lamb
being neither responsible or an adult
refuses to take the hint and instead just loiters outside
so all the kids refuse to shut up about it
and it’s all they want to talk about for the rest of the day
all like “why is that lamb so obsessed with Mary
what is UP with that”
and the teacher is like “ugh
probably because Mary is obsessed with the lamb
it is likely that the lamb was weaned from its mother too early
and now displays an unhealthy attachment complex to Mary”
and all the kids are like “WHOAAAAAAA WOWWWWWW”

One of the kids is a dude named John Roulstone
and he is SO IMPRESSED BY THIS MUNDANE INCIDENT
that he summarizes all of the above in verse form
and gives it to Mary as a gift
and somehow it ends up in the hands of a poet named Sarah Hale
who either fixes it or writes a whole new part of it
depending on who you ask
and then that shit
for SOME REASON
becomes FUCKING FAMOUS
some dude sets it to music
two renowned blues men record versions of it
fucking paul fucking mccartney covers it
and today
every god damn school child knows
about mary’s lamb and its fucking attachment disorder
all of which leads me to the moral of this story:

kids are fucking idiots

look, i mean
i like kids
they’re the future and they know how to party
but would you ever ask a kid to design your house?
no?
what about drive your car?
no?
what if you needed a lung transplant? Would you ask a fucking kid?
not unless you wanted a bunch of plastic bugs in your chest cavity
and yet we let our kids write poems all the fucking time
and that would be fine if we told them their poems were shitty
but we don’t
we fucking celebrate their garbage
we tell them it’s perfect
Paul McCartney records a fucking cover of it
it’s why there’s so many garbage books on Amazon
and so many garbage painters pouring out of art school
because art is apparently so fucking simple
even a child can do it
in fact ESPECIALLY a child

look
just because poetry isn’t load-bearing
doesn’t mean kids should be allowed to write it for mass consumption
and i mean if they do want to write poetry, fine
that’s great
but no fucking way am I letting babies decide what gets popular
listen carefully, friends:
our kids
are not
cooler than us
shitting your pants is not cool
not knowing about sex is not cool
being legally unable to rent a car is not cool
so why the fuck do we pay attention to the shit kids like

i guess what i’m trying to say
is the next time a kid tells you they like something
tell them they’re wrong.

basically fuck medieval europe
you guys know this nursery rhyme right?
it’s like “sing a song for basically free
like I will give you six pennies and some bread to sing it
a pocket full of bread actually
which is a horrible amount of bread
because have you ever tried to store bread in your pocket
it doesn’t fucking work
might as well be “a pocket full of bird treats”
which is appropriate because this song is about 24 birds in a pie”
THIS IS WHERE I AM GOING TO STOP THE RE-TELLING FOR A SECOND

let me ask you dear reader
what do you think the line “four and twenty blackbirds
baked in a pie”
ACTUALLY MEANS?
are they the 24 letters used to print the English bible?
are they the 24 hours in a day?
NO ASSHOLE
THEY ARE ACTUAL FUCKING BLACKBIRDS
people in medieval europe
straight up used to bake pie shells
and then stuff live birds into the pie shellsso that when you cut the pie open BIRDS FLY OUT
ONE TIME
INSTEAD OF BIRDSIT WAS A DWARF
FUCK
THIS
ENTIRELY
PIE IS OBJECTIVELY ONE OF THE BEST THINGS THERE IS
AND YET SOMEWHERE IN THE CLOGGED OUTHOUSE OF HISTORY
SOME PSYCHOPATH DECIDED TO TURN PIE INTO A DELIVERY MECHANISM
FOR BIRD-BASED TERROR ATTACKS
LITERALLY THE ONLY GOOD ASPECT OF THIS I CAN THINK OF
IS YOU MIGHT DECAPITATE A BIRD WHILE CUTTING OPEN THE PIE
BUT THERE’S NO WAY YOU’RE GONNA DECAPITATE ALL OF THEM
EXCUSE ME WHILE I STAB EVERY PIE FIFTY TIMES BEFORE I EAT IT NOW

anyway the story unfolds predictably from there
they try to serve the pie to the king
but the king is scrooge mcduck apparently
(which makes it even weirder that they’re serving him live birds)
and he’s in his vault swimming in gold coins
his wife is somewhere else eating an actual meal
but someone still cuts open the pie because they’re an asshole
and the birds fly out
and one of the birds goes into the garden
AND RIPS OFF THE MAID’S NOSE
doesn’t even eat it
just rips it off and leaves it there
so they call the king’s doctor
and he’s pretty chill about it
almost as if he knew something like this was bound to happen.
he sews the nose back on flawlessly
and nobody can tell it was ever ripped off by a frenzied bird

the moral of the story
is if you’re working for a king
make sure he provides comprehensive health insurance

I couldn’t come up with a clever title for this story
(which was told in its original form by a Northern Cheyenne woman named Rachel Strange Owl)
because the original title is
“Doing a Trick with Eyeballs”and just like that Apache story about a house full of vaginas
there’s not a lot I’m going to need to do to this one.

Okay so there’s this prick named Veeho
who is the quintessential try-hard piece of shit
like, if you’ve ever gotten picked up by a ride-sharing service
and your driver was trying way too hard to be your friend
laughing really loud at his own bad jokes
and being just a little racist
and you couldn’t wait to arrive at your destination
so you could stop smiling and nodding
and give him a four-star review and a passive-agressive comment
because maybe he means well and he’s trying so hard and this is his job
but also he’s incredibly slimy
well
that driver was Veeho.

So Veeho comes into an Indian village
desperately looking for a way to impress everyone
and he runs into this medicine man
and Veeho is like “HEY DUDE LOOK WHAT I CAN DO
YOU’VE GOT PRETTY DIRTY EARS
WHAT’S THAT YOU’VE GOT BACK THERE?
OH MY GOD IT’S A QUARTER HOLY SHIT”
and the medicine man is like “Bitch please
check this shit out:
YO EYEBALLS”
and his eyeballs are like “YEAH?”
and he’s like “GO HANG OUT IN THAT TREE OK?”
and his eyeballs are like “SURE”
and they fly out of his head and go hang out in a tree
it is fucking INSANE
and it looks PAINFUL
and then the medicine man is like “Ok eyeballs
I think we’ve made our point
come back into my eyesockets now”
and the eyeballs come back and burrow into his face
and Veeho is like “Oh
my
god
you have to show me how to do that”

Now when I first read this story
I’ll tell you what I thought was gonna happen
I thought the medicine man was just gonna say no
and Veeho was gonna punch him or something
and then problems
but the medicine man is just like “sure okay
i don’t need to have a monopoly on stupid eyeball tricks
boom
you can shoot out your eyeballs now
BUT
you can only do it 4 times per day
if you do it any more times
your eyeballs will get a taste for freedom
and they won’t come back.”

So Veeho is like “Shit yeah, i’m a freak now”
and he runs outside and he sees a fence
and he’s like “Eyeballs, jump over that fence”
and his eyeballs are like “Okay”
and Veeho is like “HAHA FUCK YOU FENCE”
and he summons his eyeballs back
and then he chucks them into a tree
and over a river
and onto a yak or whatever
the point is
he has very clearly exhausted his four uses for the day
and finally he gets to town
and he’s like “HEY GUYS I’M A WIZARD NOW
I CAN SHOOT OUT MY FUCKING EYEBALLS”
and everyone is like “bullshit, prove it”
and Veeho is like “Hmm
how many times have I shot out my eyeballs today?
four?
Nah, the first one was just practice
it can’t possibly count”
so he’s like “YO EYEBALLS, FLY INTO THAT TREE OVER THERE”
and his eyeballs are like “SURE WE LOVE TREES”
and everyone is like “WHOA THAT IS SO FUCKED UP
YOU SHOULD BE THE FRONT MAN FOR A METAL BAND”
but then Veeho is like “Okay eyeballs you can come back now”
but obviously they don’t
I mean come on
no eyeball wants to live inside a head that dumb
and then a bird comes and eats the eyeballs
which i guess the eyeballs find preferable to going back to Veeho
and everyone laughs at him and goes home.

so now he’s blind
and he’s wandering around bumping into shit
and he runs into a mouse
and he’s like “PLEASE MOUSE GIVE ME AN EYEBALL”
and the mouse is like “Yo dude my eyes are tiny, no way”
and Veeho is like “PLEASE”
and the mouse is like “Okay fine you can have one of my eye
I will straight up become a cyclops to shut you up.”
But the mouse is right
the eye is way too small
he can barely see a tiny point of light
but it’s better than nothing
so he keeps wandering around until he finds a buffalo
and he’s like “PLEASE BUFFALO GIVE ME AN EYEBALL”
and the buffalo is like “dude my eyes are like the size of your head”
but Veeho is like “PLEASE”
and the buffalo is like “FINE
I will actually disfigure myself just to make you go away”
so Veeho takes one of the buffalo’s eyes and stuffs it in his socket
but it’s way too big
and it makes everything look big
and that combined with the mouse eye gives him a WICKED headache
but at least he can see
so he staggers home
to his wife(?????)
and his wife looks at his ruined face
and is like “Hey maybe you should stop trying to impress everyone”
and Veeho is like “You know maybe you’re right”
and the story doesn’t explicitly say that Veeho’s wife leaves him
but I believe in happy endings.

So the moral of the story
obviously
is before you make any kind of magical pact
make sure you know how to count to at least 4
preferably higher.

At the behest of Patreon
today I will be filling in some holes in the story of Baldur’s death
as originally told by cowardly murder victim Snorri Sturluson
(hehe holes)
(I’m sorry)
(I didn’t want to turn this opening paragraph into sexual innuendo)
(do you ever feel like you’re trapped in your life?)
(like every successive boner joke sucks out a little more of your life force?)
(hehe, suck)

Right so Baldur is dead
we covered this years ago
but what we didn’t talk about
was his FUNERAL
WOOO FUNNNNNN

okay I was being sarcastic when i said woo fun
but actually the funeral is pretty dope
I mean you guys know what a viking funeral is right?
it’s when you put a dead body in a boat
and then set the boat on fire
aka THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO BE CREMATED

obviously Baldur is a viking so he is getting a viking funeral
but the problem is that Baldur is the most viking viking ever
which would not be a problem if he was alive obviously
but is a problem now because he has THE BIGGEST BOAT IN THE WORLD
his boat even has a NAME i don’t give a shit about
so the gods load Baldur’s body into the boat
but then they’re like “shit
how are we going to get this boat into the water?”
and Thor’s like “Uh, hey”
and the gods are like “If only one of us was strong enough to push it”
and Thor’s like “Hello guys, hey”
and the gods are like “Hmm … looks like we’re going to need a giantess for this”
and Thor’s like “HEY COME ON.”

But they do it
they invite a giantess named Hyrrokin
and she shows up riding a wolf
with DEADLY SNAKES as a bridle
probably wearing a leather jacket and smoking like 9 cigarettes
and Thor is like “Somebody’s trying a little too hard”
but nobody hears him because the motor on Hyrrokin’s wolf is too loud

So then Hyrrokin gets off her wolf
and Odin sends four berserkers to hold it
(and remember
berserkers are the elite viking warriors who are SO VIOLENT
that if you’re sending them into battle
you better make sure there are enough enemies to kill
because if there aren’t, they’ll make up the quota with your dudes)
and the four berserkers can’t calm the wolf down
without beating it totally fucking senseless
so Hyrokkin walks away from this bloody wolf melee
not even looking back
takes off her shades
and is like “Yo
Somebody call for a boat moving specialist?”
and everybody’s like “SO COOL”
and Thor is like “I mean i have a hammer only I can lift but whatever”

Then Hyrrokin goes up to the boat
and she’s like “Haha is this the boat you need moved?
I almost didn’t see it because it’s SO SMALL AND INSIGNIFICANT
it’s like a rowboat had a baby with another, smaller rowboat
fucking adorable
now watch this drive”
and she punches that boat into the water SO HARD
that the logs they put under the boat to help it go into the water
CATCH FUCKING FIRE
and there’s an EARTHQUAKE
and Hyrrokin is like “Wow that was easy
what’s next?
yall got some jars you need opened or anything?”
and Thor’s like “I’LL OPEN YOUR JAR YOU FUCKING SHOW-STEALER”
but before he can whip out his hammer everybody’s like “Whoa dude
chill out
don’t know what you’ve got against our cool new best friend Hyrrokin
no need to get mad
just because she was literally the only one strong enough to do this”
and Thor is like “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALRIGHT THEN
JUST GONNA BLESS THIS FUNERAL PYRE WITH MY HAMMER THEN
YOU KNOW
THE HAMMER I HAVE BECAUSE I’M THE STRONGEST”
and everyone’s like “Cool dude whatever”

Then Baldur’s wife is really sad for some reason
so she throws herself on the fire and immediately dies
and they throw Baldur’s horse in the fire too
and that golden ring that shits out other rings
so basically all their best stuff
and during the ceremony
Thor kicks a dwarf named Litur into the fire too
and nobody says anything about it
because fuck dwarves.

So the moral of the story
is next time you go to a funeral
show up riding a fucking wolf